Posts Tagged ‘Clinton Hill’

A staple of Fulton St. for the past 20 years, the Senegalese Fashion Center continues to delight its West African-couture-loving clients in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Shortly after he arrived from Senegal in 1990, Abdou Diop, 53, opened the tailor shop to serve the fashion needs of the West African community in the neighborhood. Most of the colorful, pattern-rich and embroidered fabrics are imported from Africa.

Give Diop a few hours, and he will transform the fabrics into perfectly-fitted traditional African garments.

For the loyal clientele that consists not only of African, but also African-American women, the gowns he creates are a favorite.

Max Schmidt, a Bed-Stuy resident who is originally from Belize, shares what keeps her coming back to the shop.

A mile down the road from Brooklyn Academy of Music, which doubles on Marathon Sunday as the borough’s most densely-packed area for crowds on the course, Lafayette Avenue in Clinton Hill is just as vibrant, if slightly less prominent.

Against a backdrop of the towering Lafayette Gardens, a troubled housing project that has had two murders since August, an entire community – residents, elected officials, churchgoers and casual fans – turned out this month to cheer on the 40,000 runners to participate in the 2010 New York City Marathon.

In tracking this week’s crime with a map, the majority of assaults, thefts and robberies were concentrated in a densely populated section of Fort Greene, several of which targeted strap hangars emerging from the subway.

The spate of criminal activity here is nothing new to this area and comes less than a month after the 88th Precinct acknowledged the trend at its community council meeting. The precinct has pledged to disperse more cops on the ground in response.

The crime map is curated from complainant reports of the 88th Precinct’s crime blotter, which gets published each week by The Local, a NYTimes.com hyperlocal blog covering Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The descriptions were written by esteemed crime reporter An Phung.